


so will our hearts decay

by thingswithteeth



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Character Death, M/M, Sad Ending, Trailer Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-25
Updated: 2020-03-25
Packaged: 2021-03-01 02:27:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23307526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thingswithteeth/pseuds/thingswithteeth
Summary: The cold is working its way up through Jon’s skin and into his bones. He shivers. Martin doesn’t.
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan Sims
Comments: 22
Kudos: 68





	so will our hearts decay

**Author's Note:**

> Title is Child Ballad 78.
> 
> Specific warnings in the end notes, I'm not looking to ruin anyone's night with surprise sad stuff.

“How _is_ Martin, by the way?”

It’s one of the last things Elias says to him, before they end the world together.

It’s also the last thing Elias says to him ever, a smug, _knowing_ smile twisting his lips, before Jon pulls him to pieces by doing nothing but opening another door somewhere deep within his own chest and letting the carefully archived fear of billions of terrified souls and the last screams of a dying world rush out like high tide, a drowning, obliterating wave that has been living inside him for months. (Years? Days? _Define today._ )

He feels emptied out in the aftermath. Cleansed.

The front steps of the Magnus Institute are shockingly cold after however long it’s been without a sun in the sky, even through the layers Martin had insisted that he wear. It’s like sitting on a block of ice, but it’s preferable to ending up on his face, and he’s increasingly uncertain that his knees will hold him.

There’s the scrape of shoes against stone, and Jon can’t quite summon the energy to turn and look. “Who’s there?”

“Just me.”

_Just me who?_

He doesn’t say it. Not this time. He still doesn’t turn to look, but he can hear Martin settle onto the step beside him. The cold is working its way up through Jon’s skin and into his bones. He shivers. Martin doesn’t.

“Ah,” Martin says, and he sounds almost conversational, like this is just a nice chat they’re having after the end of the end of the world and a few scant feet away from what little remains of Elias Bouchard. There’s nothing left of Jonah Magnus; the eyes had been the first part of him to go. “How long have you known?”

“Always, I think.” The noise that Jon makes is not quite a laugh. “You didn’t make it through a day, did you? Never even came back from the village.”

_I made you some tea. No you didn’t_. He’d known, had let himself know, here and there, before finding some way around it, snakes in the teacup or some other twist of logic that would allow him to keep that small piece of—. “Comfort. I said it myself, didn’t I? This isn’t a world where you can trust comfort, and you were the best comfort I had. I suppose I didn’t have it in me to let that go.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Martin shrug. “I didn’t mind.” He considers, brows scrunching together with thought the way they always had when some bit of follow-up research was evading him, or when he was pretending to do some bit of follow-up research and was really trying to get a line of poetry to scan. “Wouldn’t have minded? Don’t mind? Hmm.”

“Are you—you?” It seems unlikely. It’s also not impossible. Death hasn’t been a reliably permanent thing in Jon’s life for some time. “I haven’t—haven’t kept you from your rest, or something like that?” He remembers Gerry, remembers the skin book, remembers Gerry telling him that it _hurt_. “If I did, I’m sorry, we’ll find some way to—.”

Martin’s hand closes over Jon’s. It feels very real, real enough for heat to seep from Martin’s skin into Jon’s own chilled and aching joints. “I told you. I don’t mind.”

“I’m sorry,” Jon says again.

Martin’s sigh is exasperated, and familiar, and dear. “Jon—.”

“No. Not for that.”

_You will keep an eye on him when all this is over, won’t you? He’s earned that_ , Elias had said, and he’d used Jon’s mouth to say it. Smug. _Knowing._

“Oh.”

Jon feels emptied out. Cleansed. For the first time in a long time, the only fear he feels is his own, and even that is a dull and distant thing, muddled by his exhaustion and softened by the heat of Martin’s fingers resting over his. He wonders if perhaps that’s not altogether a good thing, if perhaps it means that he’s the only thing left here capable of feeling afraid. That thought as much as anything else is what finally forces him to turn his head and look at Martin directly.

He looks like Martin. His eyes are as warm as his hands, as warm as they ever were, and maybe it’s just Jon’s own loneliness and need for comfort summoning up a particularly solid memory, but at least if that’s the case it’s a good memory. So little of what he’s carried with him has been _good_.

“You know I’m here for you,” Martin says.

Jon swallows past the last of the tightness in his throat. He leans in, until he’s pressed against Martin shoulder to knee. “Yes,” he says, and he lets himself believe it again, just for a moment. “Yes, I do.”

**Author's Note:**

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> Martin has been dead since the season four finale.


End file.
